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Dessert

Lemon Cream Pie

A sweet pie with lemon custard filling made from butter, sugar, egg, lemon, cornstarch, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling water.

  4. Pour the cornstarch mixture over the creamed butter and sugar.

Finish and bake

  1. Once cooled, add the minced lemon and grated peel, along with the egg.

  2. Beat the mixture well.

  3. Pour the mixture into pie crusts.

  4. Bake until set.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Egg
Sets during baking and helps the filling firm up and hold its shape.
Lemon
Supplies acidity and bright aroma, with peel adding fragrant oils.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as its starch swells and gels in hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the boiling water. Starch must be fully dispersed and heated so its granules swell and gel. Properly heated starch thickens the filling, while poorly dispersed starch leaves lumps or a runny texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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